The Lolocaust April Fools Round-Up 2012

Being beings of the Internet, and enlightened beings at that, means that every year on the first of April we are beset by truths, half-truths and outright lies. Some are rubbish, attempts at being ‘funny’ but essentially thinly-veiled attempts to bring in site views by making spurious claims involving super-franchises. We do not approve of this behaviour, but when the bigger boys get involved… well we love it (and hate it, because sometimes we wish them to be true). This year has seen a bumper crop, and here are our five personal favourites.

First up, naturally, is the king of April Fools, Google, with their new iteration of Google Maps:

Had a good chortle looking at my local area in the Quest mode, and spotting my wife in full-on 8-Bit mode.

Next up we have ThinkGeek who never disappoint, with their iPad Hungry Hungry Hippos:

Harmonix don’t just make great games, they also make great April Fool Jokes too!

Sega outdid themselves again with a few pranks this year, but the best was clearly this one involving zombie fish!

and finally we have this awesome ’80s inspired Mass Effect cartoon (Oh We WANT THIS)

Of course we also need a honorable mention, and the award for best print ad HAS to go to IKEA Australia for their brilliant product recall prank:

So a great year, and with it being a Sunday a lot of the usual web-based news pranks were missing, thankfully, leaving the quality ones for us all to enjoy.

[Note] The Lolocaust considered an April Fools Prank involving our upcoming live audio show and a certain web phenomenon involving Rick Astley. But then we realised that it wasn’t funny and would require some effort. We ate Party Rings instead.